


it all starts to sound like applause

by alamorn



Category: Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: F/F, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25214569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: After Sin, Yuna visits Bikanel.
Relationships: Rikku/Yuna (Final Fantasy X & X-2)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	it all starts to sound like applause

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cricket_aria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/gifts).



> Cricket_aria, I'm in the midst of my regular FFX replay so when I saw your prompts I just had to write this -- hope you enjoy!
> 
> Cbayn is "spear" in Al Bhed.
> 
> Not super X-2 compliant, but not super contradictory either. Title from The Amazing Devils' "That Unwanted Animal"

After Sin, after her speech in Bevelle, after waiting a tense month to see if Sin would reappear, if all her sacrifice had been in vain, Rikku dragged Yuna to Bikanel.

"Come _on_ , Yunie," she'd wheedled, pulling Yuna up the ramp of the airship while the entire population of Besaid watched. "Don't you want to meet your family?"

And that had been impossible to say no to. She knew Rikku, of course, knew Cid, knew Rikku's brother as much as her clumsy Al Bhed and his clumsy Common could allow them to know each other. But there were other cousins, even a grandmother waiting in the sands of Bikanel. 

On the way there, Rikku threw clothes at her. "You don't even want to know how bad you'll burn if you wear that," Rikku said, skating a hand over Yuna's bare shoulders. "Here, try these!"

Al Bhed clothes were stiff and fitted differently than she was used to. Baggy pants, a formfitting shirt, a mask for sandstorms, all in bright colors. "I can't wear this!" she said, staring between the clothes in her arms and Rikku's expectant look. 

Rikku pouted, but it was playful, nothing like the desperation that had lined her face on the pilgrimage as she tried a hundred ways to talk Yuna away from her path. "Don't say no until you try it!" she said. "I'll turn around so I won't even see! If you're not comfortable, we can pretend it never happened."

Yuna took a deep breath. After what she had done, was she really afraid of a pair of pants? No. She had killed god, she could do this. "Okay," she said. "Turn around."

Rikku hissed a quiet, "Yes," pumping her fist as she turned around. She talked the whole time, telling Yuna about their grandmother (Cbayn, who had led the Al Bhed until Cid was thirty, and who had used her retirement to run "like five million scavenging operations, Yunie, she's _so_ cool, one time I saw her take down a malfunctioning machina with a _paperclip_ and she didn't even mess up her hair, and she's gonna love you and not even because you're _Lady Yuna_ or whatever, but because you never let anyone tell you no, which you absolutely got from her, and probably she'll give you a noogie, so be ready for that--"), and their cousins, who were extensive and all of whom Rikku had strong opinions about. ("Do I have many... aunts and uncles?" Yuna asked, as she worked the many buckles on shirt. They weren't metal, or at least no metal she knew, but something cooler, that didn't take the temperature of her skin. Important in a desert, probably. "Oh, um... Granny Cbayn just had my old man and your mom, but pretty much if you do like five work crews with the same people, you're cousins. It's a small island, family trees get confusing." Yuna stared blankly ahead. "Oh," she said. "Okay.")

When she was finished dressing, Yuna looked at herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. She looked Al Bhed, even with her dark hair. If she wore the mask, there wouldn't even be that. 

Yuna had no regrets about her life. She had always done the best she could with what was available, and Kimahri had been the best father she could have asked for. Besaid had been a wonderful place to grow up. And yet, she looked at herself, dressed as an Al Bhed, and she wondered. What would her life have been like, raised among her mother's people? She had no illusions that it would have been easy, but Rikku spoke about her family with so much _love_...

"You can turn around," she said, before she could overthink it.

Rikku whirled and her eyes welled up. " _Yunie_ ," she said. "Oh, you look so good!" She danced forward, tugging at the shirt and pants, tucking Yuna's hair behind her ear. "How does it feel? Yes or no? And remember, this'll keep sand outta your butt crack."

A small laugh burst out of her. "Well, when you put it like that!" she said, and when Rikku was happy the spirals in her eyes seemed to turn. 

"I'm so glad you're coming," Rikku said, her manic energy settling to something calm and pleased. Rikku had worked so hard to keep her happy while they traveled. It was a joy to return the favor.

"Should I do something different with my hair?" Yuna asked, to see Rikku light up once more.

They passed the time to Bikanel like that; small happinesses, reassurance on both sides that the other was still there. It was like nothing Yuna had ever known, and she found that she liked it. No great causes needed her. There was no pressure in Rikku's gaze, just sweet warmth.

When they landed, they landed in the corpse of Home.

"I thought you should see it," Rikku said, her lips tight. She picked her way down the dunes into the wreckage, twisted metal and sand, and fragments of bone. "This is where... we would have brought you, if I'd succeeded on the Moonflow."

"And then what?" Yuna asked, following carefully. She'd begun to sweat the moment they'd gotten off the airship, and the sweat gathered in the folds of the pants, the waist of the shirt. "How long would you have held me?"

"As long as it took," Rikku said. She picked up a palm sized piece of metal, blackened from the explosion, gritty with sand. She sank to her knees, threw it back. "I just wanted you to live, Yunie, I didn't need you to be happy or grateful."

Yuna came up behind her, squeezed her shoulder. "Thank you," she said.

Rikku took a deep breath, and Yuna wondered how many of the cousins she'd been told about had died here, were buried in this scrap heap. "We should go before the fiends come," Rikku said, shaking herself like a dog and springing to her feet. She'd always been good at that; putting her pain away where it wouldn't show. Aside from Yuna's green eye, it was the closest resemblance they had.

"Where do the Al Bhed live now?" Yuna asked, following Rikku back out of the pit.

"Well, we were nomadic before Home, and so that's what a lot of people are doing now," Rikku said, pulling Yuna to the top of a sand dune. "Look, over there!"

Yuna squinted in the direction Rikku pointed, but even with the shaded goggles, she couldn't see anything but the brilliant blue of the sky, the stark expanse of sand. "What am I looking for?"

"Colors! See, there's a flag, right there. The red."

Yuna looked harder, then found it. A spot of red, just visible over the curve of a dune. "Is it a camp?"

"Not just any camp," Rikku said, "it's New Home. It's still kind of a tent city, but we dug a well and the buildings are going up soon. It's been hard with... well, we don't have as many hands as we used to."

Yuna looked at Rikku, searching her face. Beneath her own smoked goggles, Rikku's expression was not quite unreadable. Grief, of course, but other things as well. "I can help," Yuna said.

"You've already done _more_ than enough," Rikku said. "This is a vacation, Yunie! You're going to lounge at the Oasis, drinking cactuar juice and working on your tan!"

"I -- I think I would rather help with the building?" Yuna said.

"Nope!" Rikku said gleefully, grabbing her hand and pulling her into a skidding, messy run, sand sliding loosely under their feet. "Not an option! You are kicking back and relaxing or _else!"_

"Or else what?" Yuna asked, laughing as they ran.

"I'll tell Kimahri on you! He'll shake his head and go 'Yuna disappoints Kimahri' and you'll feel _so_ bad, and all you have to do to prevent it is take a day off!" Rikku's imitation of Kimahri was as low pitched as she could go (not very) and as gravelly as she could manage (even less impressive).

"That's not what he sounds like!" Yuna protested.

"Well, excuse me, I'm not seven feet tall!" Rikku broke from her run, and just in time, as a stitch was starting to burn in Yuna's side. She didn't drop Yuna's hand, though, and Yuna didn't pull it away. It was... nice. "I bet he can't do me, either."

"Probably not," Yuna agreed, giggling at the thought. "I don't think he would try, though."

"I bet he would," Rikku said. "I bet I could get him to."

"I'd like to see that," Yuna said.

"You're on!" Rikku cried. "Is he still on Besaid?"

"When I told him I was going with you, he said he wanted to try returning to Gagazet," Yuna told her.

"Okay then, once we're done here, we're going to Gagazet!"

"Rikku," Yuna said, pulling Rikku to a stop with their linked hands. "You don't... have to try and make me happy, you know?"

Rikku pushed her goggles up on her forehead with her free hand so she could glare directly at Yuna. They'd left red marks around her eyes, and that was almost as sweet as how hard Rikku was trying. "You're allowed to be happy," Rikku said, and it wasn't the same way that she'd begged Yuna to stop her pilgrimage. There was no desperation there; it was... it was anger. Yuna wasn't sure Rikku'd ever been angry _at_ her before. She thought she might like it; as a summoner, people's emotions had always been informed by her role. To have Rikku angry at her, at _her_ , and not at her mission, or at Yevon, or at the fiends that dogged their steps, and the people that looked worshipfully forward to Yuna's death, was wonderfully refreshing. But still... confusing.

"I didn't say I wasn't," she said, puzzled.

"You don't need to _say_ you're not happy," Rikku said. "Oh man, Yunie, I know that things are different now, but that's -- it's a good thing, Yunie! You did it, you killed Sin, you created the Eternal Calm -- you don't -- you don't need a mission anymore, you know? You can just... be _Yunie_."

Because she loved Rikku, Yuna listened quietly and considered whether Rikku was correct. The temple at Bevelle had sent a messenger, begging her to become a Maester, the day before Rikku had dragged her onto the airship. And she had been considering it, though the thought made bile rise in her throat. She had thought she could do good in the position, create a new church -- who was better suited than the god-killer? -- but she had known it would make her miserable. And if Rikku had not pulled her away, she more than likely would have said yes.

She squeezed Rikku's hand. "I don't think I know how to do that," she admitted.

Rikku smiled at her, honest and open. "The desert's good for that," she said. "You're gonna lose, like, so much skin but when you're done peeling you'll know something about yourself. Or at least, that's how it's always worked for me -- did I tell you I did a survival trip for a week before Pops let me join the summoner snatching groups?"

"Are you being metaphorical?" Yuna asked hopefully.

"No, the sunburns are pretty brutal out here."

They started walking again, but slower this time, hands still linked.

"A week?" Yuna asked. "Alone? Aren't there some big fiends around here?"

"Yeah, well, Pops wasn't gonna be convinced I could survive alone in big bad Spira until I could survive in little old Bikanel! It wasn't so bad, the cactuars are pretty fun if you know how to meet 'em. If you don't..." Rikku shivered dramatically. "Pulling needles out of your own butt is -- like, okay so, fighting Seymour a million times? _Probably_ worse, but I wouldn't put money on it, you know?"

Yuna giggled, which she was sure was the point. Being cheered wasn't so bad, truly. "I can imagine."

"Do you know, Lulu didn't even undo _one_ of her belts the entire time we were here? Like, I'm pretty sure she was casting blizzard on herself, or she would have sweated to death."

Though their hands were slick with sweat, Yuna didn't pull away at any point on their walk, Rikku leading them skillfully around fiends, keeping up her chatter the entire time. It might not be helping Yuna figure out who she was without Sin, but she wasn't in such a hurry to find out that she couldn't enjoy the stories. Rikku had a way of jumping from topic to topic that was perhaps not the greatest method of storytelling, but was easy to listen to.

When they reached the camp, the shadows were growing long and the temperature was starting to drop. Yuna was glad to see the fire circle at the center of the colorful tents, and just as happy to see the guards posted around the perimeter, well-used guns comfortably held in their hands. Rikku breathed out a quiet sigh -- did she worry, every time, that she was coming to see Home destroyed once more? -- and then hollered, at the top of her lungs, " _HEY, GRANNY!"_

A woman, perhaps in her sixties, with a weathered face and a shock of short gray hair appeared from one of the tents. There was a gun at her hip, and a pouch much like the one Rikku kept her tinkering in strapped to her thigh, and she matched Rikku's volume with ease. " _HEY, BRAT!"_ she returned, hands on her hips, a wide smile on her face.

As Cbayn approached they lapsed into Al Bhed for a moment, rapid enough that Yuna caught only a few words here and there, and then the woman turned to her and spoke in Common. "So you're the famous granddaughter."

"I am Yuna," Yuna said, embarrassed to call herself anything like famous, though she knew it was true. "Are you Cbayn?"

"I am," Cbayn said. She didn't look like Yuna had expected her grandmother to look, when she'd thought about it as a child. She'd pictured a soft woman, gentle and kind. It was more than possible Cbayn was those things, but she was also wiry and hard muscled, and had a wicked scar pulling the right side of her mouth into a permanent twisted grin. "It's good to finally meet you. Glad you're not dead."

"Ah," Yuna started, then stopped, non-plussed. "Me too," she finished lamely.

Cbayn laughed and slapped her on the back. It felt a little like being hit by a stray blitzball at full speed. "Come sit by the fire. You got any black magic talent?"

"Not really," Yuna said.

"Probably for the best. If you were good at everything, you'd probably have an unbearable ego. It's good to fail at some things, no matter how hard you work. A woman who kills Sin and survives needs to get her humility in small places."

"I... suppose?" Yuna said. Nothing Rikku had said had prepared her for this.

Cbayn shoved her into a seat by the fire pit and dropped down to sit across from her. The light would last another hour or so, but the pit was already piled high with kindling -- not wood, but dried dung, if the smell told her correctly. When the fire was lit, her view of Cbayn would be through leaping flames. Now, it was uninterrupted.

"If I'd known you before," Cbayn said baldly, "I would have stopped you. So it's good we're only meeting now."

"I am not so easy to stop as you might think," Yuna said as Rikku dropped to sit next to her, long legs sprawled in front of her.

"You're my blood," Cbayn said. "I would never doubt your will. But will can only do so much against a hogtie."

"She has a pretty mean hogtie," Rikku said, "but Yunie prolly would've chewed through it or something."

"Just like your mother, then," Cbayn said. "I tried to keep her from marrying that Yevonite, and she stole a seaskimmer and ran in the middle of the night." Cbayn grinned, ignoring the way Yuna had tensed at the way she'd spoken of Braska. "She always was my favorite." Well. That was harder to take offense to.

"Don't let Pops hear you, you know how he mopes," Rikku said, laughter bubbling in her voice.

Cbayn grunted, but it was good natured. She could grow to like this woman, Yuna realized. That Cbayn didn't seem to care if she did only made it easier; she was not used to being treated like a person, whose opinions did not matter more than anyone else's. For as long as she could remember, she had been exceptional; the daughter of a High Summoner, then a summoner herself, then a traitor, and now -- well, people didn't quite know what to do with her, now, but they did it respectfully, no matter what they decided.

"Will there be a dance tonight?" Rikku asked. "Since I _have_ blessed New Home with my presence?"

"We wouldn't dare skip it," Cbayn drawled, with an indulgent grin.

"Dance?" Yuna asked. She was used to the sending dance, the summoning dance, and neither of those were celebratory.

"You're gonna have a _blast_ , Yunie," Rikku promised, eyes sparkling. She looked the same way she did when she talked about a new explosive she'd mixed up, so Yuna felt justified in being a little dubious. A little excited, too. It was hard not to be, with Rikku looking like that.

"I look forward to it," she said. Perhaps Yuna was the sort of person who liked new explosions, now.

When the stars started to come out and Cbayn lit the fire with a spark maker from her thigh pouch, other Al Bhed began to appear. Some of them greeted Yuna, some of them didn't. Some of them carried instruments -- drums and whistles and other simple things -- and some did not, and they all settled into a loose circle around the fire.

When the last person joined the circle, Cbayn stood, brushing sand off her pants. She spoke in Al Bhed, but slowly enough that Yuna understood every word. "We gather here tonight to welcome my granddaughters Home. You all know Rikku, and you all know of Yuna. Let's show the High Summoner a good time, shall we?"

There was scattered agreement, and then Rikku threw a powder on the fire that turned the flames a bright blue, roaring up to the sky. A drumming started, swift and heavy. Yuna found her fingers tapping on her knee with the beat, and Rikku leapt to her feet, and began to dance.

It was nothing like the sending dance. There was no sorrow in it, and the only beauty was the rawboned sort -- there was no script to this dance, and it grew as she watched, Cbayn stomping her feet and twirling Rikku in and out with muscular grace. It was heavy footed, but light handed, Rikku's arms making beautiful shapes as they moved. Every four beat, another joined the dance, circling the fire with abandon. The ones who remained seated clapped along, faces strange and beautiful in the blue light of the fire.

Rikku circled the fire once, twice, and then stomped in a tight circle across the fire from her. The pace of the drums quickened to that of a heartbeat, and the flames licked even higher, until they nearly brushed the emerging stars. And then, when Yuna was sure something _had_ to happen, that this tension could not go on and could not disappoint by just ending, Rikku leapt through the flames. Blue clung to the lines of her arms and legs, wreathed her hair in a brilliant corona, made her strange, made her a stranger. The drums and the clapping stopped suddenly, leaving only the shrill cry of the whistle tearing through the wide open silence of the desert night.

Nulblaze and Curaga rose to her fingers almost together before she realized Rikku was unhurt. As she danced her tight circle once more, this time directly in front of Yuna, close enough that she should have felt the burn, Yuna realized the flames were cold. Not the bright burn of snow, but a strange sharp absence of warmth. As she watched, the flames shrank and blinked out, leaving Rikku no less strange, but no longer a stranger. And when she reached out her hand, Yuna took it. The drums began again.

They danced for what felt like hours. There were no steps to know, not proper ones, only the rhythm of the drums, the way the fire grew and shrank and changed colors as Al Bhed threw powders upon it. It was green when she leapt it, green like Rikku's eyes, and Yuna knew then what she wanted.

She stumbled when she landed, but Rikku whirled her around once more, making her dance till the flames burned off, leaving her skin tight and sensitive, but unburned.

This time, she was the one who pulled Rikku. She pulled her away from the fire, pulled her into the shadow of a large tent near the edge of the camp. The moon was bright above them, so bright that she could still see Rikku's smile. See it, and want it.

"I want," she said, panting, suddenly aware of the burn in her legs, the rush of air in and out of her mouth, "to learn the Al Bhed. I want to know my mother, and I want," she continued, the words tumbling out of her mouth, "to learn my history. Spira's history. Everything I can."

Rikku's expression was something almost like triumph. "You're _such_ an Al Bhed," she said, hugging Yuna close and lifting her into a spin. Her arms were hard with muscle from their Pilgrimage, and being within them felt _right_ , right in a way she was unused to. It was not the familiar pain of knowing her purpose. It was not the comfort of a mission, or the terror of knowing false hope and knowing what she had to do. It was -- when Rikku put her down, Yuna kissed her.

She had never been a coward, after all.

It was nothing like her last kiss. There was no bittersweetness, just the sharp bite of fire and triumph, and then of Rikku's teeth. Rikku's arms did not fall from her waist, but slid up her back to pull her closer, her mouth opening under Yuna's in the reckless haste with which Rikku approached everything.

When they pulled apart, they did not go far, arms still locked around each other, panting into each other's hair, pressed cheek to cheek.

"Come with me," Yuna said, and Rikku didn't hesitate before she said, " _Yes_."


End file.
